2013
2012 2013 2014 Events * China surpasses the United States as the state with the largest total foreign trade in goods (more than $4tn). * Chinese space program races ahead in exploration while the U.S. space program focuses on creating opportunities for space entrepreneurs engaged in space commerce delivering supplies to the International Space Station, which was built with American tax dollars. * National Security Agency (NSA) has a very bad year, as its public statements are repeatedly proven to be lies, as are the statements made on its behalf by the Obama administration. As it turns out, the NSA spies on everyone. * United States does NOT intervene militarily in the Syrian Civil War. Despite intense efforts to create a war fever by neoconservatives and the "liberal" reporters and editors at NPR, not to mention the friends of Saudi Arabia & the Gulf States at Foggy Bottom, a majority of the American public oppose U.S. military intervention. * Percentage of labor union membership in the United States does NOT decline for the first time in thirty years. * Obstructionist Republican legislative majority in the U.S. House of Representatives makes this the least productive year in the history of the U.S. Congress. * Civil War flares in the Central African Republic and South Sudan as the year ends. European news sources focus coverage on events in the Central African Republic where French peace-keepers are deployed; American news sources focus what little coverage they care spare from celebrity news on events in Anglophone and hydrocarbon rich South Sudan. * U.S. state governments adopt 70 laws to restrict reproductive liberty. Timeline January * January 16: 24 killed by three car bombs planted by "rebels" in Idlib Governorate, Syria. * January 31: First Israeli airstrike in Syria during the Syrian Civil War, against a convoy in Rif Dimashq. February * February: Memphis, Tennessee eliminates Confederate names from three city parks. * February 14: Meteorite strikes injure hundreds in Chelyabinsk, Russia. March * March: CPAC Straw Poll Results: :: KY Senator Rand Paul 25% :: FL Senator Marco Rubio 23% :: Former PA Senator Rick Santorum 8% :: NJ Governor Chris Christie 7 :: Congressman Paul Ryan 6 :: WI Governor Scott Walker 5% :: Television Physician Ben Carson 4% :: TX Senator Ted Cruz 4% :: LA Governor Bobby Jindal 3% :: Former AK Governor Sarah Palin 3% :: FL Governor Jeb Bush 1% :: TX Governor Rick Perry 1% :: SC Governor Nikki Haley 0% :: also rans and write-ins 11% * March 11: 3:11: Surviving Japan documentary is released. * March 14: Iraqi parliamentary candidate Kamisa Ahmed Al-Bachari and her husband are assassinated by gunmen evening as they return from a wedding party in Al Arish village, south of Mosul, about 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad. * March 31: U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral resources holds hearing on rare earth elements and critical materials legislation: H.R. 716 & H.R. 1063. May * May 3, May 5: Israeli airstrikes on Rif Dimashq, Syria. * May 4: 5 U.S. soldiers are killed by a bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan. * May 5: Horrendous garment factory building collapses in Bangladesh, killing more than 700. * May 22: Ideologically driven morons, Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, murder British solider Lee Rigby in cold blood in view of horrified onlookers close to Woolwich barracks in southeast London. June * June 17-18: G8 Summit at Lough ErneRresort, County Fermanagh, Eire. * June 18: 31 killed and 60 injured by two suicide bombings in al-Qahira, Baghdad. * June 18: 27 people killed and 30 injured by a suicide bomb in Sher Garh, Pakistan. * June 20: U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services reports S. 1197, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, "for the military functions of the Department of Defense (DoD), for certain activities of the Department of Energy (DOE), and for other purposes." According to the CBO, the total cost would be $626 billion. July * July 1: Croatia becomes 28th member of the European Union. * July 3: Mass protests allow Egyptian military to depose President Mohamed Morsi in a (popular) military coup d'état. * July 15: Le Matin Dimanche reports that University of Geneva geologists found cesium 137 in the sediment of Lake Biel. The Muehleberg nuclear power plant is located only 17 kilometres (11 miles) west of the Swiss capital of Bern. * July 16: Norwegian neo-Nazi singer "Varg" Vikernes associated with Anders Behring Breivik is arrested by French Interior Ministry as "a potential threat to society" after his wife buys 4 rifles. August * August 1: Edward Snowden leaves Moscow airport after 39 days in limbo on a one year temporary asylum visa. * August 13: Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal begins: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's deputy chief, Bridget Anne Kelly, emails David Wildstein, a Christie appointee at the Port Authority: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." He writes back, "Got it." * August 19: Train Hits Crowd in India, Killing Dozens in Bihar. September * Sept. 7: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: David Wildstein emails Bridget Anne Kelly: "I will call you Monday AM to let you know how Fort Lee goes." * Sept. 9: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Two of three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge are closed, causing traffic chaos, especially in Fort Lee, New Jersey. * Sept. 10: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich texts Bill Baroni, Port Authority deputy executive director about the problem noting that kids can't get to school. Informed of Sokolich's pleas, Wildstein texts an unidentified person: "They are the children of Buono voters," referring to Christie's Democratic opponent for governor, Barbara Buono. * Sept. 10: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Fort Lee EMS Coordinator, Paul Favia, writes a letter to the mayor stating that, "this new traffic pattern is causing unnecessary delays for emergency services to arrive on scene for medical emergencies." He cites several examples of EMS crews being delayed to 911 calls, including a 91-year-old woman who later died. * Sept. 12: Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who did not endorse Christie for re-election, tells Baroni that he believes the lanes were closed as a "punitive" measure and asks that the closures be lifted. * Sept. 13: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, a Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointee, orders the lanes opened. The Port Authority will claim that the lanes were closed for a "traffic study." * September 20: 46 soldiers killed in attacks on an army base in Shabwah Governorate, Yemen. * September 21: Driven insane by their religious beliefs, al-Shabaab Islamic militants seize Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, murdering at least 62 civilians and wounding over 170. * September 22 (1:30pm-3:00pm): Movement for Change would like to warmly welcome you to their Main Fringe Event at the Labour Party Conference 2013 October * October: Hilary Mantel wins man Booker Prise with Bring Up the Bodies. * October: Democratic Party of the New Jersey Assembly transportation committee announces investigation into the lane closures, and the Port Authority says it will also review the matter. * October: Number of Americans investigated and deemed eligible for access to classified information reaches 5,150,379. * October 10: Delegates from some 140 countries and territories sign the Minamata Treaty, a UNEP treaty designed to protect human health and the environment from emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. November * November: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Bill Baroni states at an New Jersey Assembly hearing that the controversial lane closures were part of a traffic study but acknowledged the Port Authority erred in not notifying the public ahead of time. Erred. * November 10: European Space Agency's GOCE satellite meets fiery doom during re-entry. December * December 4: Senior Hezbollah commander Hassan al-Laqis is assassinated by gunmen outside his home in southern Beirut. * December 6: Indian journalist Sai Reddy is killed afetr being beaten and stabbed in the market of Basaguda village in the central state of Chhattisgarh. * December 2: Chris Christie's Bridgegate: Christie sarcastically dismisses questions about the closures being political retaliation, saying: "I worked the cones. Unbeknownst to anyone, I was working the cones. * December 6: David Wildstein resigns, citing the "distraction." * December 10-11: Radical Emission Reduction Conference sponsored by the Tyndall Centre * December 10: Uruguay's Senate passes bill to create the world's first national marketplace for legal marijuana. This is what political courage looks like. * December 11: Graduate students at New York University vote by a 49-to-1 margin to join a union. Theirs becomes the only private university in the country where grad students bargain collectively. * December 13: American Studies Association (ASA) ratifies convention resolution to participate in an “academic boycott” of Israeli universities to highlight discrimination against Palestinians. This results in nervous over-reactions from the American Council on Education, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Association of American Universities, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). * December 13: North Korean Government announces that it has executed as a traitor, Kim Jong Un's uncle Jang Song Thaek. * December 15: Radio evangelist Harold Camping who incorrectly predicted the end of the world twice in 2011, dies at his home in Alameda, California at age 92. * December 16: Responding to a Change.org petition with 162,150 signatures, Duval County Public School Board votes to rename Nathan Bedford Forrest Senior High School. Forest was the 19th century Confederate General who founded the terrorist Ku Klux Klan as its first Grand Wizard. * December 18: Russian Duma passes amnesty bill likely to free the 4 members of the babnd Pussy Riot and the 30 members of the crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after an anti-Arctic oil drilling protest. * December 19: European Space Agency launches star-surveying satellite Gaia from French Guiana on a Russian-made Soyuz rocket. * December 19: Al Goldstein, founder of Screw magazine, dies at age 77. * December 19: After a three week trial at London's Central Criminal Court, a jury finds two ideologically driven morons, Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, guilty of murdering British solider Lee Rigby close to Woolwich barracks in southeast London on May 22. * December 19: Republican Governor of Iowa Terry Branstad proclaims that Vice President Joe Biden has no chance of winning the Democratic Party caucuses during the 2016 party presidential nomination season. “Biden is dead meat out here,” he told CNN interview. “He is not going anywhere.” Beyond sporting a fabulous mustache, Branstad can both read the mind of the opposition and predict the future with great accuracy!!! * December 22: Senior Israeli officials perform public outrage about NSA spying in a renewed lobbying effort to free convicted American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard. Remember Mordachai Vanunu anyone? * December 23: AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at age 94. * December 25: Military government of Egypt bans the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. * December 26: Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo visits Yasukuni Shrine. * December 13: Bill Baroni's resignation is announced. Christie says it had been planned and was not connected to the lane closures. * December 31: New Jersey Assembly transportation committee issues subpoena to David Wildstein ordering him to testify.